‘The View’ Refuses to ‘Glorify’ Oregon Shooter: ‘We Aren’t Saying His Name’

Linda Ge
‘The View’ Refuses to ‘Glorify’ Oregon Shooter: ‘We Aren’t Saying His Name’

The panelists of ABC’s talk show “The View” on Friday tackled the mass shooting at Oregon’s Umpqua Community College, and tried their best to skirt around the always-controversial issue of gun control.

The segment began by playing a clip from President Barack Obama’s remarks following the shooting, stating, “Somehow this has become routine. The reporting is routine. My response here at this podium is routine… We’ve become numb to this.”

While Joy Behar expressed disbelief that this is the the 45th mass shooting this year so far, Sherri Shepard said that, as a Christian, she felt persecuted against since this is one of two high-profile shootings in recent memory in which Christians were specifically targeted for their faith.

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Behar and Paula Faris then encouraged viewers to join a growing online movement that seeks to stop glorifying the shooters in these incidents.

Chris Harper Mercer, 26, carried out the shooting in Oregon, but his name was never mentioned once during the segment.

“We aren’t saying his name,” said Faris, who opted instead to highlight the name of Chris Mintz, a bystander who charged the shooter in an effort to stop him, getting shot at least five times in the process.

While Candace Cameron Bure talked about her faith and the challenge of discussing these mass shootings with her children, Raven-Symone suggested the larger issue was everyone was too self-absorbed to speak out when they see people act strange on a consistent basis.

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Faris tried to bring the issue to gun control, saying, “If he didn’t have a gun, this wouldn’t have happened.” But the other panelists argued he could have had a knife, made a bomb, or gotten a gun from somewhere. Before the discussion descended into a shouting match before it was cut short by a change of topic.